[pdkl95]

The engineering dept at UCDavis went well beyond a single page, and usually allowed anything you wanted as long as it was print-only, book included. (nothing electronic or networked, obviously)

The idea was 1) in the real world, you have reference material which you should know how to use, and 2) test length did NOT include any extra time to look things up.

If you knew the material and just needed a quick check of some detail, you could look it up without any problem because you didn't have to search. On the other hand, if you were trying to teach yourself some concept during the test, the wasted time would probably impact how much of the test you were able to complete.

I liked that system - it seemed rather generous coming from "nothing allowed" tests in earlier schooling, and it had a side benefit of reducing the number of profs that badly reused exam questions or lazily used textbook-provided questions.

/* Yes, this policy caused some of us to find the one printer on campus that printed on A3 paper with duplex support, so we could print an electronic-only reference book at 24 pages/sheet (if I remember correctly...) */